Yellowish sky, hazy day

I stopped first at 'triangle park', near the Vendome 5-way intersection, and made a painting of the neat tree that grows there. Its a birch tree, and its bark is always peeling off. Maybe it needs some extra birch tree nutrients. With a hazy, yellowish sky mid-afternoon, it was a sign of wild fire smoke once again. The yellows look really bright, the blues turn greyish, and everything has an eerie glow. 

Birch tree bark peeling, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

 

The yellow-orange sun was penetrating through a hazy pale-blue grey sky today. Hanging over a glass vaulted arch, it made for some interesting scenery to paint on location. A faint smell of 'camp-fire' confirmed this was from a far-off forest fire. I was standing in Dorchester square downtown, looking northwest. 

Glass vaulted arch yellow sun, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

Taking on this scene, while the sky dried on the previous painting, I captured the intersection of Rene-Levesque and Peel street. Avoiding blue, I tinted the cars yellow with dilute raw sienna (PBr7) and yellow ochre (PY43), then used black (PBk6) for shadowing and details. This painting seems significant to me, in that its perhaps the best painting yet of such a scene. When downtown the amount of stuff can be overwhelming. Using a sharper brush and larger sheet might get even better results. 

Traffic near Dorchester square hazy day, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

This painting was a bit of a fail, the paper was absorbing too fast creating flat washes and difficult to control details. I will try the scene again sometime, although its always back-lit. Perhaps a night scene would be good here, its a famous pub with a lively crowd. Soon I will get back to using new paper, for now I am working on the backs of old paintings as I consolidate the collection a tad. There is one more to post from today, I will make a separate blog for it, its a neat one!  

Peel PJD Pub, watercolour 6 x 9" cold press, August 2026 

Looking back: London Ontario, street scenes

As you might know, I tend to paint a lot of garbage cans, bins, dumpsters, you name it. This was one of my favorites, almost photo-realistic, it was done on campus (University of Western). They had immaculate waste containers, a tasteful pea-stone and concrete cylinder equipped with one shiny black garbage bag. 

Benches and bin, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, ~2002

It was the colour contrast between the purple shadow and yellow parking lot devices that drew my attention. You can see the same type of attention to local shadows as the first painting of the bin, and it may well have been painted on the same day. I would walk around campus and surrounding areas making paintings bu carrying a backpack and a camping chair. 

Yellow parking boxes, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press ~2002

Finally, a scene of the new (at the time) art building which was built down on a flood plain. So a drawbridge-style entrance was build to get into the front door (the building was surrounded by a kind of moat). I liked the framing of all the traffic posts, with some tulips in the foreground. 

Art building facade, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, ~2002

 

Looking back: London Ontario, different seasons

These painting were all done on location around 2000 give or take a few years. I was more into abstract surrealism at the time, but made a few location paintings now and then. I remember sitting at home during winter nighttime, really wanting to go out and paint, so I headed to the parking lot under a strong overhead flood light. The snow-covered car with its red tail lights really stood out against the surrounding snow and murky dark-cyan sky. 

Car in parking lot winter, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press

These apartments were out in the farmer fields of north London, I wonder if any of those fields are still there? I guess that developments were made, like around Bolton. It was lightly raining, some time late autumn or early spring I'm not sure exactly. It seemed like the painting was a disaster but when I got it home and it dried, it looked fantastic. 

Apartments light rain, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press

I thought, if the lamp post is crooked, then I will paint it crooked! Its the same parking lot as the winter painting, but you see an autumn-orange tree in the background. 

Parking lot autumn, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press

Looking back: London Ontario, lamp, road, poolside

Looking back on my old paintings from London Ontario, here is one from around the year 2000 done with a photo-realistic technique. The amount of detail is remarkable, considering its a very small painting done on location. It was done in a neighborhood near the Masonville mall area in the north part of London, I was obviously sitting within the gated area, you see the fence in the background. 

Ornate lamp, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2000

At this point, the paved road became a dirt road, its called Dingman road because I wrote it on the back of this painting, along with the date, 1996. I recall this day, I was fed up with the city and wanted to ride my bike as far as I could until I found farms and dirt roads! So, including the sign was part of the theme. 

Dingman road, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 1996

A shallow wading pool, sometime early spring when it was empty. Painting the chair was a tough task, this was another painting from 1996 when my skills were still developing. I started painting in 1989, then began painting on location towards the end of 1995 and never really stopped. This park is near Paperbirch crescent along the train tracks. 

Pool side chair, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 1996

Stormy sky in Verdun, construction pit

It was a stormy sky over Verdun today, as you see in this painting of an auto-shop back lot I painted a thin layer of yellow ochre, then applied mixes of indo blue (PB60), dark magenta (PV55), and burnt yellow ochre (PR101) to create the cloud shapes, with a dab of phthalo blue or green here and there (PB15, PG7). 

Stormy sky Verdun auto shop, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

The giant construction pit that filled with water, I called it Lake Verdun, has been mostly drained, pumps are working over time to get the water onto the sidewalk and into drainage openings. You see some of the water on the right, and mounds of earth on the left, with a long factory-turned condo in the background. 

Lake Verdun horizontal warehouse condos, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

Same location, a yellow-ochre (PY43) construction crane hovering over the site. By the looks of it, this is a massive construction project, like 5 x 5 city blocks! Its supposed to become a mix of housing and shops, so a little village. 

Verdun crane, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026 

Bike ride through a few cool neighborhoods

More like ride through a few hot neighborhoods today, it was muggy and humid in Montreal. This scene is down in st Henri, looking at one of the many red-brick triplex condos. On the left side was signage for an old laundry mat called King, but I changed the sign to be my initials and the year. It took a while to build up the structure, washes and texturing for this painting, and it came together with the final details on the balcony, roof tiles and bricks. 

Corner triplex old laundry mat, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August 2026

Another scene from st Henri,  I was drawn tot he tree and found a good angle on it standing near the big grocery store corner. To do the tree, I made a wash of green plus yellow (PBk31 + PY184), then filled in yellow on the bottom with black on the top (PBk6). When dried, I applied a greenish black over top, and mixed umber (PBr7) with magenta (PV55) to make the trunk colour. It reminded me of the trees Van Gogh painted in southern France. That is Mount Royal visible in the background. 

Van Gogh tree, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

I needed the previous painting to dry a bit before applying the texturing, so I did this one looking east towards the big IGA grocery store, changed to PJD, and the main street which is Notre Dame street. 

PJD grocery, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August 2026

Curio Folio: Side toaster

 I tested out my first product the other day, as a member of the Association of Retail Sales Evaluation club. I just received a new test product.... since they wont allow photos of the products, which are not on the market yet, I made a painting instead. The latest test-product was the side toaster. Its just like a regular toaster with two slots and a switch, but the openings are engineered on the side of the device. In this manner, the toast will jump out directly on your plate without the need for you to touch hot toast. Because of gravity, its less likely to get stuck too. I found the product to work well, and after some practice and fine-tuning, I managed to get the toast to land on the plate and not slide off onto the floor. Another neat feature they added, is a 'paper shredder' mode, where you can feed documents into it for destruction, which are then turned to ash. Brilliant. 

Curio Folio: Side toaster, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, August 2026